The present invention relates to a device for feeding products from a supply unit to a receiving unit.
In particular, the present invention may be employed to advantage on soap manufacturing and packing systems, for feeding the soaps, equally spaced, from the manufacturing to the wrapping machine.
On known systems, the soaps coming off the manufacturing machine are fed randomly spaced and usually by means of a conveyor belt to a device by which they are equally spaced.
One such device, described for example in Italian Patent Application No. 3679A/88 filed on Nov. 30, 1988 by Azionaria Costruzioni Macchine Automatiche A.C.M.A. S.p.A., picks the soaps up successively off the conveyor belt by means of suction heads fitted with suckers. The suction heads are arranged equally spaced and designed to pick up the soaps off the conveyor belt as they travel, at a different speed from the suction heads, beneath the respective suckers.
The soaps picked up in substantially equally spaced manner by the suction heads are then inserted successively inside equally spaced compartments on a second conveyor belt by which they are fed to the wrapping unit.
Insertion of the soaps into the compartments on the second conveyor belt, however, poses numerous drawbacks, in that the soaps are rarely centered perfectly in relation to the suckers, and can only be safely inserted inside the compartments on the second conveyor belt by allowing a good deal of clearance between the compartment and the soap. As such, the position of the soap inside the compartment is poorly defined, which obviously leads to further problems at the wrapping stage. In fact, for the wrapping unit to function properly, the incoming soaps must be accurately positioned to prevent them from being damaged during application and folding of the wrapping material and, even if such damage is avoided, to enable the wrapping unit to apply and fold the wrapping material correctly in relation to the soaps.